Posted on 06/27/2010 9:24:53 PM PDT by shield
The U.S. Navy has relieved the captain of a frigate (USS John L. Hall), because, two months ago, his ship bumped into a pier as it was docking in the Black Sea port of Batumi, Georgia. There was no damage to the pier, but the Hall suffered damage costing $160,000 to repair. After the investigation was over, the navy concluded that the captain should be relieved for “loss of confidence in his ability to command.”
That makes seven ship captains relieved so far this year, more than twice the rate that it has been relieving them in the last few years. That, in turn, is an increase over the rate for the 1990s. Other strange things are happening. One of the most recent dismissals was unusual for two reasons. First, the dismissed captain was a woman, and, secondly, the navy gave the reason (abusive treatment of the crew, and the captains demeanor and temperament). Complaints from the crew had been coming in for some time, and the captain was relieved as she was at the end of her tour of duty on the USS Cowpens, and in the process of turning over command to another officer. The dismissed captain went off to her next assignment, as a staff officer, but her career prospects are now rather dim.
The navy rarely releases details of why the officers are relieved. But the usual reasons are character flaws of one kind or another. Running the ship aground is seen as a rather obvious failing, but it is not the most common one. Those would be cases involving "zipper control" (adultery with another officer's wife, or a subordinate). The British also relieve a lot of commanders, and are more forthcoming with the reasons. One British skipper got the sack recently for "bullying."....
(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
And it will happen and it will not be pretty or peaceful.
What I know abou this subject could fill volumes. The US Navy is in some sad shape.
about
A brownshoe.
It is a general term now for both Officer and Enlisted that work aviation.
Years ago we were enroute from San Diego to Norfolk, VA with another ship. We had a towing exercise with them off Mexico. The excercise turned into a collision with damage to our ship's hull, bridge, davits and their Papa boats; and Mike boats on the main deck (one of their ramps ended up on the main deck of the other ship.
After arrival in Norfolk we went into the shipyards to have sections of the hull replaced, etc.
No skipper replacement for our ship, I don't know the fate of the other ship's CO.
Now it seems a minor 'fender-bender' is curtains.
You need to get that term out of your head when talking about Naval ship Captains. They are always responsible for the ship and it comes with the territory. They know it when they take command and rarely have I heard of one bitching about a raw deal.
Our politicians could take heed of this!
That’s what I was thinking. Silently put your own people in there so when you decide not to worry about little things like elections or term limits, you have the muscle to back it up.
Not quite. That would be an Act of God and not the Captain's fault.
But any adverse event that the Captain reasonably should have foreseen and avoided, or trained his underlings to foresee and avoid, is indeed his responsibility. If he is asleep in his cabin when the ship runs aground on a charted reef, his fault lies in not ensuring that the Officer of the Deck was well trained enough not to scratch the paint before he turned over the bridge. This is the doctrine of "respondeat superior" and it applies to ship captains, airline pilots, physicians, and all other highly trained individuals in a position of ultimate command. If a captain screws the pooch, even the admiral on shore who recommended him for command may suffer adverse consequences to his career under this doctrine.
Same with the Titanic's captain when the ship hit the iceberg; even though he couldn't have known that that particular iceberg would be in that particular time and place, he knew there was an ice warning, he knew he was running at top speed, he knew it was a moonless night with low swells that made bergs harder to see, and he should have known his men in the crow's nest had no binoculars.
Even the submarine that hit a seamount in the Pacific a few years ago turned out to be the captain's responsibility. True, it was not marked on the charts they carried. However, those charts were not up to date, and on a later version it was indeed marked. It was the Captain's responsibility to get the most current version of the charts on board and in use before unmooring the boat from the pier. If the seamount had been uncharted even on current charts, then the captain probably would have escaped disgrace and relief of command, assuming there was no other violation such as operating at an unsafe speed or depth.
Respondeat superior is a tough but fair standard. There really is no other way to run a vessel without craven finger-pointing avoidance of responsibility in the event of an accident.
My memory is a little sketchy on this but a few years back a Navy ship ran aground around San Francisco. The CO wasn’t even on the ship when it happened and was relieved of his command.
My memory is a little sketchy on this but a few years back a Navy ship ran aground around San Francisco. The CO wasn’t even on the ship when it happened and was relieved of his command.
Between 1994 and 1999, about 3.5 percent of ships failed inspections by the Board of Inspection and Survey, Balisle’s commission found. From 2005 to 2009, almost 14 percent of ships failed
It would appear that a few admirals should have been relieved too. It’s nice to say “Anything can be done by issuing an order”, but as shown in the case of the Port Royal it isn’t always the case.
The push for “efficiency” isn’t always efficient.
Shortly after we pulled out of Viet Nam I was skipper on an Army LCU. Most of the crews were Viet Nam veterans and used to keeping our vessels ready to go at all times. We did not play by The Book but had a 100% mission accomplishment rate. We all believed in Mission First. It was rare for a boat to be down for maintenance more than a day.
We had a new Company Commander, his first statement to the skippers was that his inspection and inventory would be by the book. No vessels could keep parts or equipment not authorized. My own boat kept enough unauthorized parts to rebuild a main engine or generator while underway. We were given until Monday to remove all unauthorized equipment.
The new CO came down the pier with a 2½ truck. Every boat had a full load. We were left with nothing but what we were authorized - all we could do was change oil, keep fluid levels topped off and write up work order requests - but we were now “efficient” by The Book.
It wasn’t long before our readiness rate dropped. Boats that should have been hitting the beach were lined up awaiting maintenance.
The Navy is NOT a business, but he tried to make it so.
If a meteor is falling, it should be picked up by the ship’s defense system, at the least, NASA should know about it. So an alert would go out to ships in the general area, so, yes, the skipper would be responsible. However, I don’t recall what happened to the captains of the USS Stark or the USS Cole when they were attacked, but those were “relieveable” offenses, too.
Woof! How are you, True?
But we often have to treat it as if it IS a business. Sad to say.
Oh, come on. Like these captains weren’t in their positions before the SecNav? The question is, why were unqualified people promoted in the first place?
This sounds to me like a cutback under the Bush administration in order to pursue the ground ops in Afghanistan and Iraq-—which, probably, was a reasonable tradeoff. Still, actions have consequences.
well said, thank you.
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